Adeus and So long...

On this Sunday, father's day, I'm writing my last blog post. The sudden death of Tim Russert makes me realize how much I'm missing by not being out there. We may vanished from this Earth plane from one second to another and there is still so much I would like to do, so many mountains I would like to climb, so many oceans I would like to dive, so much music i would like to create and last but not least, so much interaction with my kids I would like to have.... So long Mazungue@blogger. It is not your fault, as a matter of fact, I rarely come this way. You were merely the chosen blog where I 'm writing my last paragraphs. The others will just fade away...

On the way out, I'm leaving one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost. Coincidentally, this poem has been on my mind every day throughout this month of June 2008:



Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
By-Robert Frost

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The Carnation Revolution

The Carnation Revolution happened on April 25, 1974 in Lisbon, Portugal and although government officials killed four people before surrendering, the revolutionaries did not use direct violence to achieve their goals. The population holding red carnations convinced the regime soldiers not to resist and the authoritarian dictatorship gave place to a democracy after a two year transitional period full of social turmoil and power dispute between left and right philosophies, where the left had a heavier weight. It was the end of the oldest totalitarian regime of the western Europe.

Meantime in Africa, I was in High School then and I knew something mysterious was happening in Europe but had no idea how much impact it was going to have on my life and everyone else's around me! Eighteen months later, I found myself in Portugal among over half a million other refugees. A civil war had broken up in Angola after the Portuguese forces practically abandoned the former Portuguese province in Africa. The multinationals quickly took sides and instigated a division among the Angolan people creating an uncomfortable environment that ended in a 20 year war among brothers and sisters. Friends turned against friends, races against other races, freedom of speech became a passport to death. Children became soldiers, mercenaries flocked to the country looking for quick money, and terror became the way to conquer and to control. Freedom fighters lost their way and the reason why they were fighting in the first place. Angola became a chaos and children starved to death. Today, there is peace at the surface, but the poor is still poor and the rich exponentially richer. The nouveau elite takes care of each other and pretend not to see how the poor struggles to stay afloat. Perhaps it is the pendulum still swinging to the extreme before it returns and finally stops at mid-ground. Perhaps it is life where the greed gets greedier and the poor remains poor forever. Only time will tell what it will happen to Angola. I don't believe the current generation of multibillionaires really think about it. They just enjoy their new lifestyle while they can. But when the poor is forgotten, nothing can be sustained and so, I am curious to see what will happen in the next decade.

The rain in Africa

Missing someone or missing something can be a real painful event!
Like this morning when I woke up with this void inside me, refusing to open my eyes as I searched for the sound and feeling of rain drops in Africa. It is unexplainable the sense of being in the midst of jungle and rain, interrupted often by heavy thunder then silence - total silence! Then quickly come the flying ants and a beautiful rainbow at the other side of the mountain. The sun smiles again like a child that just played a prank on his parents, and we can't help it but to smile back in awe! I miss it almost desperately. In the morning, on my way to work, I greet the rubber plant at my front door and I see the whole Africa in a vase! Somehow, I thing the plant greets me back in its own way - I prefer to believe that such is true...

above all, I miss you!

My catholic Youth

Watching the Pope's visit to the US on CNN (hard to miss such event) made me think of my days as an altar boy in a little town buried in coffee plantations and green mountains with lots of caves to explore (before they splashed them with war mines in the early eighties).

I was born catholic as most Portuguese families before the end of Salazar's dictatorship. There was no exception for the provinces in Africa since they were under the same European rule. If you were not catholic it was OK, just couldn't tell your neighbors if you wanted to be part of society. My mother is a devoted catholic and so are some of my kids. I think it is okay to be part of a religious group for camaraderie and to have a sense of belonging. What is not okay is to think that anyone else is not "seeing the truth" and will probably burn in hell. Truth is a very personal thing and each of us have to find our own. I praise my younger daughter for being a devoted Catholic but I constantly remind her that there are many truths and that it is alright to explore other ways without feeling guilty about it.

There were three aspects I loved about being in church back in Africa. One was the old organ they had that sounded like angels in the sky, my first introduction to European music. The other was the voices of native people singing on Sundays. The third one was their library, the only one in town and a place where I spent many hours exploring. I used to snick in and quietly read page after page of the classics. It was my window to the rest of the world. No one new I was there. It was my sacred place. The other s.p. was the top of the mountain that surrounded the town of Gabela. There, the wind would whisper me stories of a world without war and greed, a world with lots of love for one another. I just didn't know that a few years later, that little town would the place where hundred of families would find their maker in a civil war created by the multinational powers.

tony araujo
4/20/08

We are all related (Thank God!)

Well, if the geneticists were in charge of immigration control, it would be an open-door policy.

"Every one of us has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. The number of ancestors doubles with each generation. So what does this mean? Going back 30 generations (approx. 750 years ago), every person alive today will have over a billion possible ancestors. However, the world population for the year 1250 AD is estimated at only 400 million..."

DNA tests could also be a powerful tool in the fight against racism. It is not just that they prove, once and for all, that any notions of race or racial purity are patently absurd and scientifically wrong. Their power lies in that they prove it by showing people what is in their own blood. When the truths of science become personal truths, they get taken more seriously.

Empty Heart

She arrived suddenly
catching me off guard...
and then she vanished
leaving an empty awareness
in my heart!

And now I ask, was it worth it?
or would I rather not
possess the feeling of her being?

tony araujo
4/2008

Why Barack Obama

My first impression with Obama was a powerful one! He had just visited Kenya as a U.S. Senator where he was treated like royalty not just by the people of Kenya but by the Government itself. One would say that Barack Obama would play "politics as usual", have a great time and come back home feeling like he had just gone on vacation, but that's not what happened in Kenya.

During his speech on the University of Nairobi, Obama criticised the Kenya's government for not being transparent and for being corrupt. Students and concerned officials were in awe while other officials chuckled with such unexpected words.

I new then that this person, Barack Obama, was very special indeed. I am so proud to see him as a front runner in the American presidential race and yes, for the first time since I remember, I am proud of being in America for this is the America I have always dreamed of, the one that my parents spoke of and that I had not yet felt, thinking that, perhaps my parents were dreaming of something that never had existed. Politics as usual is about to take a down turn. Obama is inspiring us to be better children, better parents, better neighbors and yes, better citizens.

I am voting for Barack Obama knowing in my heart that he will make a difference as the president of United States.

Hugs!

tony

The Portuguese Global Empire

"What actually happened was, in a very short period of time, the early 16th century, the Portuguese landed in Brazil and established a network of trading posts around the Indian Ocean, all the way to Macao. Beyond Macao, they got to Japan by the 1540s. They put together this phenomenal network that was less territorial and more commercial—the only sizable land settlements they had were in Brazil. The Portuguese were active in India and the Persian Gulf area, the west and east coasts of India, Japan and China."

" Portuguese is the most spoken language in South America." I never thought about this one. I guess it is because Brazil is such a vast territory!
The article can me found at the Smithsonian Magazine

Child kidnap 'surge' in DR Congo

Recent fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has led to a surge in child abductions by armed groups, the charity Save the Children says. more...
All sides in the conflict use children, Save the Children says!!!! > Ler em Portugês

Brotherhood

Here is a poem from the Luthern Pastor, Martin Niemöller, who broke with the Nazis in 1933 and became a symbol of the German resistance. He wrote the following at war’s end in 1945:

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Watch Night

On New Year's Eve, many African American religious groups hold prayer and worship services from the late evening until midnight when they worship the new year with praise, thanksgiving, prayer, and confession. These services are called watch night meetings. December 31, 1862, was a very special evening for the African American community, because it was the night before the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, freeing all the slaves in the Confederate states.

Student loan debt bearing down on U.S. graduates

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that two thirds of undergraduate students are carrying loan debt with them upon graduation, on average $19,237. The median debt load is $17,120; a quarter of undergrads borrow more than $25,000, and a tenth borrow more than $35,000. Loans from the for-profit private loan industry have especially increased as share of the total student loan volume over the past few years, as students max out their borrowing limits on federal loans. Increased private borrowing is also related to the collapse in family home equity and tightened alternative avenues for credit. Last year, students borrowed $18.5 billion from private lenders, up 6 percent from the 2005-2006 school year to fully a quarter of all borrowing.

Ya, keep them chained right from the beginning, how's that for modern slavery?

December 16th 2007

So it has been a year since my last post! (laughing) I had lost the password and other affairs had pushed me away from here. Today I was able to recoup my password and, what a surprise... it is exactly 1 year since my last post! What a coincidence, I am shocked!! (laughing)

20 Years meditating at the Gerês Mountains

For twenty years she was a shepherd in Gerês Mountains, North of Portugal.
Being the youngest sister of eleven siblings, it was her task to tend to all the sheep and goats by herself in the mountains, while her brothers and sisters were going to school.

The need to read the Bible made her learn how to read and write on her own.

Her only set of clothes were worn in reverse during the week so she could used them on Sundays while in church, her only escapade from her duties since she was a child.

On her twentieth anniversary she run away to Lisbon, which was like going to a totally different planet. There she worked and got married and with her first baby on her arms she emigrated to Africa. In the mid seventies she fled the civil war in Angola and emigrated to USA starting a new life from scratch.

She became 80 years old this month. She has been a shepherd, a housewife, mother, businesswoman, grandmother and above all, a very wise teacher.

She is my mother and I am very proud of her.

When meditating do you keep your eyes open?

I don’t know if it happens to you or not, when I ‘m in contemplation, I do so with my eyes open. Somehow closing my eyes does not allow me to be aware of it all and I may fall asleep. Music also leads me into dream patterns and that’s not what I’m looking for when meditating. Actually I am looking for nothing, just pure awareness. The metronome is great if you lock it at 60 cycles per second. In the audio program 33 Steps to reclaim your infinite Self, Stuart Wilde had a recording of such metronome on the last CD. I still use it to this date.

The peace that passeth all understanding

Through history, there has been women and men who, in the face of great loss, illness, imprisonment, or impending death, accepted the seemingly unacceptable and thus found 'the peace that passeth all understanding."

Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world.

Ref.:
The Flowering of Human Consciousness

This moment

When we treat this moment as if it is an obstacle to be overcome, (like when we feel we have a future to get to that is more important than our present moment), we are short-changing our existence. Like Eckhart Tolle says, "a simple but radical spiritual practice is to accept whatever arises in the now - within or without"

When we say yes to what it is we become aligned with the power and intelligence of life itself. Only then we become an agent for the positive change in the world.

The Student

You Are the Only Student You Have


You are the only faithful student you have.
All the others leave eventually.

Have you been making yourself shallow
with making other eminent?

Just remember, when you're in union,
you don't have to fear
that you'll be drained.

The command comes to speak,
and you feel the ocean
moving through you.
Then comes, Be silent,
as when the rain stops,
and the trees in the orchard
begin to draw moisture
up into themselves.


Mathnawi V:3195-3219


Photo of Roscoe Mitchel